Hi, I'm not clear on what you used to water your plants. The proper type of water is distilled water because that has been distilled to get pure water and leave the minerals and salts behind. It is not chlorine that is bad for carnivorous plants, it is the dissolved minerals like calcium, magnesium, etc. So boiling ordinary tap water isn't any good, you want to have pure water like distilled water, rainwater, or melted snow. If you in fact used tap water and just boiled it, well, that's not going to harm them once, but you should make sure you use distilled water or captured rainwater in the future. (I use rainwater or melted snow... right now I'm trying to get as much clean snow as I can, and melt it and save the water for summer -- got about 20 gallons right now, which is pretty much all I have room to store. But sometimes my outdoor plants get watered by accident by our lawn sprinkler, which is the bad tapwater - but I don't worry about it if it's only a few times per year.) Flooding things is okay, sometimes if we get some real rainy weather in the summer, my flytraps get completely submerged for several days in the aquarium I grow them in - doesn't seem to bother them at all. Better wet than dry. I would recommend planting each plant in a different pot when you can. I use pure long-fiber sphagnum moss, but most people here seem to prefer a mix of sphagnum, sand and perlite. I just tranplanted the flytraps in one of my aquariums last night... so here's a pic to give you an idea about what you can expect in the way of top growth and roots on a healthy mature flytrap, plan your pot size accordingly: You can grow flytraps fairly crowded, like shown below, as they don't seem to mind it. But if just starting off, I'd give them plenty of room to get them nice and healthy. Hope that helps. -Don

"I'm a sucker for those wide brim straw hats with a lavender/floral ribbon." Somehow I'm not surprised. :D I think I just need to get over the kitchen being in the family room. It's the whole point of this addition--being able to put the kitchen in a CASUAL area (instead of overlooking my living and dining rooms as it does now) where it can just BE without messing up the "good" parts of the house. I think we do want something that goes with the bones of the house, so maybe wood. The image I posted above is what the house originally had, so obviously I'm not going to go that far! (But seriously, I'd consider it if anyone made those lipped plywood cabs these days...). I've seen some painted fifties cabinets that were pretty great. but I think we're going to do wood. I'm thinking a natural or mildly stained slab, cherry or walnut maybe. Sort of modern, maybe mid-century modernish but not quite. More mid-century mild? We're too sloppy to pull off a totally sleek modern kitchen. We've always had stainless steel counters and that would probably be weird behind the sofa so I don't know--maybe we need a "curb" on the back side of the peninsula so it doesn't matter. In this house I have learned that tile isn't that bad a surface (although this tile is ugly) and I don't even mind the cast iron sink (I used to break coffee carafes too often). Of course all of the tile I like is sort of feminine. So yes, we're clueless. The kitchen table is a '60s surfboard shape in orangey pecan with these chairs (the handmade needlepoint has been rehomed and they've been recovered and can be again): The other furniture (that we currently have) that will probably go in there is a stereo console that serves as a TV stand. The spouse could fight that but the spouse would lose--it's hard to find a record player in a drawer! It is nicer in person--has spectacular walnut veneers on the sides and top. We'll have to get a new couch and I plan to get my papasan chair out of the attic (ssshhh don't tell!). Also maybe a 4' wide hutch of the 1960s French provencal orange maple variety. So, while I am totally off topic here on Rosie's small cozy kitchen, I am putting enough junk in this room to turn it into a small cozy kitchen! aHA! So, medium wood tone cabinets tucked into a gloomy windowless corner of a great room. (There will be skylights if I can't somehow get clerestory windows in there.) We may do an exposed beam type of ceiling but I'm guessing we won't have enough light to wood panel it. Yeah that's right. I want wood paneling and I'm not ashamed to admit it! If we do go with a taller ceiling then we can have taller windows and maybe a little more light feeling back in the hole. Appliances, well, I am cheap so I'll be reusing my black dishwasher, but I am ready to retire my black fridge which wasn't supposed to survive the last remodel. I don't really care much what it is; it just has to go and it has to fit. We may end up with a builtin--it's just too soon to say since I don't have my kitchen walls nailed down yet. All I know is that it's goin' in the hole! I have no style.

I think that's called chip carving, and I'd guess it was from Burmah, Japan, SE Asia somewhere? That's pretty vague, sorry! It's nice!

No idea......but I would say you really did score!! Screens like that were popular in the 1920's and early 30's....but I really can't say more. Does appear to be hand painted....lovely! This stirred a memory....I had a screen with my "nursery set"...a matching crib and chifferobe. I used the chifferobe long after the crib was handed down, but no idea what happened to the screen. My mother used to screen me from the open window and a possible draught.